Re: Opera Web Browser (with an html address...)

[Paul J Thompson <thomppj@thomppj.student.okstate.edu>]

>   Paul, I'm afraid, you did not read their website carefully: Opera is
>   soliciting 3,000 _pre-paid_ orders, and only if they collect they 
>   will start development;

I admit and apologize for being so misleading about the opera thing, not 
having mentioned the price involved and such.  I just was afraid it would be 
brushed off if I said much about the cost.  Next time, I will include all of 
the information and let you be the judge.

I beleive that this is not an opportunity for the Linux community to pass up.  
A commercial software distributor actually even considering producing such a 
mainstream program for Linux.  Sure, it would cost.  But, it would improve the 
ammount Linux was taken seriously by certain companies/people.

I am not wording myself particularly well so I will simply point people to 
Benedikt Eric Heinen's response to my mail.  For those who don't feel like 
finding it, I quoted it the end of this message.

> >  and respond.  I know it isn't 100% kosher Debian Free Software Guideline 
>                                  ~~~~                    
> 
>   Well, I am afraid that is so misleading indeed. Even the browser will
>   cost $35 (repaid). Not even...  0.01% free software! 

well, i was making the DFSG part because I know how important the free part is 
to us.  I have realized that (and the reason behind it) tremendously in the 
past couple weeks thanks to some long email threads.

thanks for replying.  :^)

-----
Brought to you by the letters E and K and the number 9.

Paul J. Thompson <thomppj@thomppj.student.okstate.edu>
<http://thomppj.student.okstate.edu/~thomppj/>

------

eric's response:
>  I recently was looking to see if the web browser Opera was available for 
>  Linux.  Well, when looking at their site I discovered that they are currently 
>  doing a poll of sorts to see how many Linux users (along with some other OSs) 
>  would be interested in their browser.  They have pledged that if they have 
>  3000 Linux people interested by the end of November (when the poll closes) 
>  that they will start working on developement.
[...]
> The Opera page can be found at http://opera.nta.no (sorry I forgot it the 
> first time...)
The URL listed in their announcement on c.o.l.a recently had the following
URL (which will immediately put you on the right page for the linux
conversion info):
	http://www.operasoftware.com/alt_os.html



  Maybe I should add to that, Opera is not just doing a "poll", to see
who's interested, but they are actively requesting orders for Opera 3.0 at
US$35 each. They'll be billing you those US$35 if they manage to get 3000
pre-orders for the platform, and then use the money to pay those
programmers working on the port.

  Second addition, while I browsed over their pages, I saw that the
standard price is US$30, and asked why they were trying to charge US$35
for the linux/OS2/mac/beos conversions. They replied that the US$35 is the
official price for Opera 3.0, which hasn't been released yet. The US$30 is
the official price for the (current) Opera 2.0. The port to linux/... will
be done on the basis of Opera 3.0 and therefore be subject to the US$35
price of the Windows Opera 3.0.


  Personally I already ordered two copies for myself, because I see this
as a chance to get some real competition to Netscape; arena, w3, mosaic,
mnemonic, and amaya are not yet ready for prime time, and it'll be a good
while until it is. I think that $35 per copy can still make a cheap
alternative to netscape's usual prices (and especially I hope they will
pose to be an alternative to Netscapes' support when Opera gets released,
because Netscapes' support SUCKS). 

  Unfortunately, they only got something like 300 orders for linux yet -
2700 left to go in the next 4 weeks. I hope, that some of you will get
through to risking that sort of money to help develop a new browser on
linux and to help get some more competition going on that market, which
can only profit us all (remember, emacs' highest growth phase has been
after Lucid/XEmacs was out, and FSFs GNUemacs got some real competition.


  Finally, I am not related to Opera, except through the order of two
copies of Opera. I'd just really like to see this browser coming to linux.

  [Besides, if this works with Opera, this might also lead other companies
to the linux market, that are looking at it more sceptically at the
moment. Maybe some of them can be talked into either porting their product
to linux, or try something similar to gauge the current interest from the
linux community]



    Benedikt


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